1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a playing card holder. More particularly, the invention relates to a playing card holder that enables a person having the use of only one hand to hold and sort playing cards despite such a handicap.
2. Description of the Related Art
Participation in a card game such as bridge is primarily a mental activity. Card playing is a particularly enjoyable activity among elderly and disabled people because it does not require a high level of physical prowess. The primary physical requirements are the ability to arrange the cards that the player is dealt into a desired order, hold the ordered cards in one hand, and discard or pick up with the other hand.
Unfortunately, the minimal physical requirements of card playing are beyond the capabilities of those who are handicapped by virtue of their lacking a usable hand or arm, including elderly persons who are prone to trembling hands. Such persons would benefit greatly from the mental stimulation and social interaction provided by card playing if they had available to them a device that could hold their cards for them in approximately the same manner that the human hand can hold cards.
Conventional card holders suffer from a number of deficiencies that detract from their usefulness to players having disabled arms or hands. First, many card holders are designed to be hand-held. Furthermore, even those conventional card holders that are not hand-held are difficult to use for a person whose usable hand is prone to trembling. Conventional card holders grip only a small portion of the surface of playing cards so that the frictional force between the playing card and gripping mechanism is critical. If the friction coefficient is too high, the player has difficulty inserting cards into the holder and removing them from the holder. If the frictional grip is too low, an elderly person's trembling hand is likely to knock cards out of the card holder inadvertently when attempting to insert or remove a desired card.
The present invention is intended to provide an improved playing card holder that enables a person having only one usable hand to enjoy card playing
The present invention also is intended to provide a playing card holder that holds cards securely, yet enables the player to insert and remove cards without difficulty.
In addition, the present invention is intended to provided a playing card holder that frictionally grips a substantial portion of the surface of the playing card while enabling the player to identify the suit and value of the card.
Additional advantages of the present invention will be set forth in part in the description that follows, and in part will be obvious from that description or can be learned by practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention can be realized and obtained by the apparatus particularly pointed out in the appended claims.